are influenced by culture, attitudes, leadership perceptions, and the type of task
undertaken. It took negotiators 8 months just to reach an agreement on the shape of
the table. The diagrams in Figure 5-5 mark the chronology of the seating proposals.
The United States (U.S.) and South Vietnam (S.V.) wanted a seating arrangement in
which only two sides were identified. They did not want to recognize the National Lib-
eration Front (NLF) as an equal party in the negotiations. North Vietnam (N.V.) and
the NLF wanted equal status given to all parties, represented by a four-sided table. The
final arrangement was such that both parties could claim “victory.”The round table
minus the dividing lines allowed North Vietnam and NLF to claim all four delegations
were equal. The existence of the two secretarial tables (interpreted as dividers), the lack
of identifying symbols on the table, and an AA, BB speaking rotation permitted the
United States and South Vietnam to claim victory for the two-sided approach. Consid-
ering the lives lost during the 8 months needed to arrive at the seating arrangement, we
must certainly conclude that proximity and territoriality are far from trivial concerns in
some human encounters. (McCroskey, Larson, & Knapp, 1971, p. 98)
SUMMARY
Our perceptions and use of space contribute
extensively to the various communication out-
comes we seek. Some of our spatial behavior is
related to a need to stake out and maintain terri-
tory, and territorial behavior can be helpful in
regulating social interaction and controlling den-
sity; it can also be the source of conflict when
territory is disputed or encroached upon without
permission. We identified three different types of
territories—primary,secondary, and public—and
several different levels at which territorial behav-
ior exists: individual,group,community, and
nation. Although we often think people vigor-
ously defend their territory, the type of defense
depends very much on who the intruder is, why
the intrusion is taking place, what type of
territory is being intruded upon, what type
of intrusion occurs—violation,invasion,or
contamination—how long the intrusion takes,
and where it occurs. We often try to prevent peo-
ple from moving into our territory by marking it
as “ours.”This can be achieved by our physical
presence, the presence of a friend who agrees to
watch our territory, or by using markers—fences,
coats, and the like—or a special kind of lan-
guage. When someone does invade another per-
son’s territory, we sometimes find the “owner’s”
physiological arousal increased, and various
defensive maneuvers may be used, such as flight,
hostile looks, turning or leaning away, blocking
advances with objects or hands and arms, and
verbal behavior. Just as people do not like others
to invade their territory, we also find they are
reluctant to invade the territory of others, often
apologizing when it cannot be prevented.
We examined density and crowding in both
animal and human interaction. Some animal
studies showed undesirable effects from overpop-
ulation. High-density human situations, how-
ever, are not always disruptive; sometimes we
want the company of many people. The best pre-
dictor of individually stressful and socially unde-
sirable outcomes seems to be the number of
people per room rather than other density mea-
sures. When people do feel the stress of a
crowded situation, they seek ways to cope with
it. We also distinguished between density, or the
number of people per unit of space, and crowd-
ing, a feeling brought on by the environment,
personal, or social factors. Our examination of
spatial behavior in conversations revealed many
ways of conceptualizing and measuring this
behavior. As a result, some generalizations
about conversational space remain tentative.
We do know that each of us seeks a comfortable
conversational distance that varies depending
on age, sex, cultural and ethnic background,
setting, attitudes, emotions, topics, physical
148 PART II THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT